Last week was the series finale of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. And everyone was upset about it.
Let's check in with this frequent viewer.
“Colbert is finally finished at CBS. Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he’s finally gone!” - DJT
OK, maybe not everyone.
But for all the normal people who are not blobby orange fuck monsters of hate, this series finale was to put it mildly disturbing.
A show usually reaches it's series finale for one of two reasons:
1) The people making the show are ready to move on to other things. Stephen Colbert was still enjoying what he was doing and had a talented staff still happy to make that happen.
2) The network or studio making the show needs to stop the show because it sucks.
In the case of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert:
- It was #1 in it's time slot
- Average 2.7 million viewers per episode which is pretty good numbers for late night television in the modern era.
- Won an Emmy for outstanding talk/variety show.
So the case that the show had to die because it sucked is hard to make.
The reason CBS gave for cancelling the show was for "financial reasons", that for all it's success, the network was losing $40 million a year. It cost more to make than it made in ad revenue.
Well I could actually see that as a valid argument for ending a show.
BUT...
There were NO negotiations between CBS and the producers of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert to try to mitigate those losses. Like maybe looking for Colbert to take a pay cut or produce fewer episodes.
What we do know is this:
- Stephen Colbert was a frequent critic of Donald Trump.
- Skydance was looking to acquire Paramount which owns CBS.
- Skydance was owned by the billionaire Ellison family who are Trump supporters.
- The Ellisons needed a favorable decision from the Trump administration to approval the Skydance/Paramount merger.
- Colbert hurt Trump's widdle feelings.
- Colbert gets canned.
- The Skydance/Paramount merger wins federal approval.
As Woodward and Bernstein's source said during the Watergate scandal of the 1970's, "Follow the money."
Following the money leads anyone with a modicum of common sense to May 21, 2026 and the end of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
So how did that turn out?
If anyone in this foresaken world has a right to be angry and bitter, it would be Stephen Colbert.
But Colbert has been anything but. He has greeted this countdown to the end of the show and the final show itself with grace and joy.
Colbert isn't mad that the show is ending after 11 years.
He's happy that he got to do the show for 11 years!
What he expresses when he is alone without a camera on him, who knows? But by all accounts, Colbert really is the man we saw on TV, friendly, funny, gracious and kind.
Which is kind of ironic as he spent a long time on TV not being himself.
Before he took over The Late Show from David Letterman, Stephen Colbert was "Stephen Colbert", the apex right wing host of The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. This "Colbert" wrung laughs out of parodying the outrage and indignation of right wing pundits who populated Fox "News" and mocking the Republican polititians enabled by those pundits.
This "Stephen Colbert" embraced the concept of knowing things are true because they feel true. Who needs pesky facts? He coined a word for it: Truthiness.
Since a certain blobby orange fuck monster of hate now governs by what he feels to be true, "Colbert" was ahead of his time.
With the advent of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Colbert had to learn how to be himself.
Early epiodes were kind of rocky and it took time to find his groove. And that groove was in political humor.
There were critics (beyond a certain blobby orange fuck monster of hate) who thought Colbert's sharp pointed political barbs were a mistake.
Late night talk shows are supposed be FUN!
But Colbert did have fun while giving a voice to most of America who find living in a world of Trump is a time in hell.
And this was when Colbert really got good.
And this was when the ratings started looking better and better.
No wonder then that in the way of all fascists, he wanted Stephen Colbert to go.
For the final show, Colbert refrained from referencing Donald Trump by name. His monologue was about sink holes at LaGuardia Airport and in Queens.
The closest we got to a Trump joke was Paul McCartney discussing the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 and how their make up made them look orange.
Colbert: “That’s very popular in certain circles these days."
McCartney: “We set a trend."
Colbert: “Now we know where it started! Thanks a lot, Paul McCartney!”
Colbert's discretion in not mentioning Donald Trump may have been one last dig at the notorious Narcissist in Chief. What's worse than being insulted? Not even being mentioned at all.
But I think more to the point, Donald Trump represents anger, bitterness, contempt, hate.
Colbert wanted this final episode to be anything but that.
If this final episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was to be the series' funeral, Colbert was gonna put the "FUN" back in funeral.
We got some funny cameos from celebrities Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds, Tim Meadows and Tig Nataro vying to be Colbert's last guest.
ODD FACT#1: Tim Meadows was also fired this year by CBS/Paramount when his sitcom DMV was cancelled.
ODD FACT#2: Tig Nataro was fired as well this year by CBS/Paramount when Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was cancelled.
ODD FACT#3: That means Stephen Colbert was fired TWICE this year by CBS/Paramount when Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was cancelled.
There was a odd recurring bit as the lights and the set background kept glitching.
With a lot of fan fare, Stephen reveals his final guest is Pope Leo!
Who refused to come out because the Chicago styled hot dogs in his dressing room were sub-par according to the Chicago born Pope. What a diva!
Thankfully Paul McCartney is still in town after last week's appearance on Saturday Night Live.
Paul's not a random choice as he has a special historic connection to the Ed Sullivan Theater, making his American debut with the Beatles there in 1964.
Paul described why coming to America was important to him in 1964 as it was the birthplace of the music he liked. It was a bastion of freedom and democracy which Paul pointedly addresses seem to be in peril these days.
Stephen's interview with Paul is going well when the lights glitch again and Stephen is not going to let it slide this time. He goes back stage to investigate and...
It's a wormhole! A big green swirling hole in space!
Neil Degrasse Tyson shows up to explain wormholes are created by profound contradictions... like cancelling a show that is #1 in the ratings.
Then Tyson says the wormhole is the wrong color so Stephen shoves him into it.
Then Stephen is joined by Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and John Oliver! Strike Force Five is back!
(See last week's Your Friday Video Link for a clip of the Strike Force Five reunion from the previous week on The Late Show.)
The other hosts explain that Colbert is in denial about the end of his show.The hosts disappear in a teleporting effect that will be added later in post-production. (It wasn't.)
After Stephen pleads for an older mentor to give him advice, Jon Stewart appears.
Stephen is happy to see him and asks John, "Do you know an older mentor who can give me advice?"
Stephen confidently runs back on stage to resume his show but the wormhole has followed him and consumes the entire Ed Sullivan theater.
And all is darkness.
It's not over yet. We get a poignant music moment with Colbert joined by Elvis Costello and Jon Batiste. (Cool! Glad Batiste made it back for the last show!)
And back to the theater which is still there for a joyous performance of the Beatles' "Hello/Goodbye" led by Paul McCartney and it's a party, y'all!
Staffers and Stephen's family (Hi Evie! We love Stephen's wife!) swarm the stage and the catwalks as everyone dances and parties likes we're gonna live forever.
But the final moment arrives.
Back stage, Stephen Colbert and Paul McCartney pull a power lever and the Ed Sullivan Theater goes dark and then in a swirl of green light, shrinks down to a snow globe.
Like the last scene in the series finale of St. Elsewhere.
Wow, that's a deep cut.
So...
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert has come to an end.
Nobody wanted this.
Except for a certain blobby orange fuck monster of hate.
Donald Trump thinks he won. The DJT quote at the start of this post was where he went online to boast about Colbert being gone now.
But Trump is a loser.
In defeat, in a time of loss and heartbreak, Stephen Colbert showed himself to be a better man than Li'l Donnie would ever hope to be.
In his final moments on CBS, Stephen Colbert received such an outpouring of love and affection from his colleagues and fans that a lonelty bitter old man likeTrump will never know.
And Stephen demonstrated why he deserves that support with kindness, gratitude and humor.
Stephen Colbert is a good guy.
I am not.
I will close out with a quote from David Letterman when he appeared on Colbert's show last week, addressing the leadership of CBS and Paramount:
"Good night and good luck, you motherfuckers!"
Take us out, Paul!
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I'm not done yet!
The Tuesday TV Touchbase Too will be up in a few hours as we say farewell to The Boys.
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